Recently, we came across this simple explanation by a Singaporean lady. It highlights that we should be aware of how quickly the Aedes mosquitoes are being bred. Hence, we should not be complacent about the measures that the government has done and do our part as well, to reduce and ultimately prevent the spread of Zika.
Here's the gist of it all:
You should know that the female Aedes mosquitoes are the ones guilty of spreading the virus as females need to feed on our blood for protein. An female mosquito infected with Aedes will lay eggs that contain the virus.
1) In her 5 weeks lifespan, a female Aedes mosquitoes lays about 300 eggs per week.
2) Considering that half of these eggs turn out to be female mosquitoes, we get 150 new born female Aedes mosquitoes.
3) Here comes the power of exponential! If each new born female Aedes mosquito go on to lay their own eggs, this is how many eggs we will get in just a short span of 5 weeks!
Week 1 - 1 Female Aedes mosquito
Week 2 - 150 eggs
Week 3 - 150^2 = 22500 eggs
Week 4 - 22500^2 = 3,375,000 eggs
Week 5 - 506,250,000 eggs
That's 506 million female Aedes mosquitoes waiting to break out from their egg and flying off to feed on our blood for protein. Just a simple power function of y = x^2 result in such a scary thought isn't it?
This does not stop here according to this Singaporean lady. But to spare you guys from the scary findings done by the lady, we will link you the article here and stop talking about it now.
The findings done by this Singaporean lady is just a simple illustration on how quickly a power increases the original value. Before ending, do take note not to confuse power functions with exponential functions as they are quite different! (Location of x.) To read more about it, click here.
Finally, let's stay calm and focus on working together as a nation to reduce and ultimately prevent the spread of Zika.
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